


Fraxinus

by grainjew



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Battle Frontier Arc, Friendship, Gen, Loyalty, Sceptile Doesnt Do Chores (except when it does), ft: ash feeling guilty and sceptile being ready to throw hands for basically any reason, mmmmmmmm soft, true to brand my dynamic entry into the pokemon fandom is wholesome loyalty content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 12:26:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18165185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Coda to Advanced Generation episode 178, "Battling the Enemy Within!"After that whole mess where he got possessed by an ancient king bent on world domination and also underhanded battle tactics, Ash decides that Sceptile is owed an apology. Sceptile is less than receptive, because it's too busy being really, really alarmed by Ash suddenly missing all his confidence.They talk.





	Fraxinus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingwish/gifts).



> hi, i fell headfirst into pokemon anime and it's my one piece server's fault

Sceptile trailed behind Ash, a load of firewood in its arms. Ash had let it out of its pokeball earlier with some intent, but the two of them immediately got roped into campsite chores before Ash could explain. Sceptile didn’t mind. It’d been finding more and more that it was nice to just help out, with the smaller and more necessary things.

It was a new experience, since… well, not since evolving, quite, but since watching Ash shelter it from angry beedrill, when it should have been Sceptile doing the protecting. Somehow, after that, even the very slight distance it habitually put between itself and the rest of the group felt unexpectedly wrong, and it had been trying, subtly, to creep closer. And if that meant doing chores, then that meant doing chores. Ash did chores, after all. There was no reason for Sceptile to be above them.

Ash was being unusually quiet, though, as he lead the way through tangled undergrowth and ducked overhanging branches. He’d been much chattier after losing to Salon Maiden Anabel. He’d been chattier after losing the _Hoenn League._

Finally, Sceptile heard him take a deep, shuddering breath. “I wanted to say,” he said, shifting his own collection of branches in his grip. He turned and paused, looked at Sceptile with the expression he got sometimes after a defeat or a lesson learned, all crumpled guilt and a smile. “Sorry about today.”

“Sceptile?” said Sceptile. It was always a possibility, even if it wasn’t normally this bad.

Ash shook his head, though. “Not the defeat. Well, yes the defeat, but mostly what I asked you to do, in the battle.”

“Scep _tile_.” It made an arcing gesture with its free arm to dismiss the thought.

Ash looked back at it for a moment, then turned his gaze to the forest canopy. “...but if you knew it wasn’t me, why’d you do all that stuff I asked you to?”

Sceptile’s tail twitched, and it ducked its head. “Scep.” It hadn’t quite realized _then,_ and for that alone it was ashamed of itself. But some of those battle strategies had been so quintessentially Ash, mixed in with reprehensible _not-Ash_ underhandedness. And in any case, Sceptile would never question an order from its trainer. Even… well, ever.

“Sceptile?” said Ash, his voice softer, suffused at the edges with guilt. Sceptile heard the clatter of dropped wood, and then Ash’s hands were gentle against Sceptile’s face, cupping its jaw and lifting its gaze. “I’m sorry,” Ash said again. “Whatever about today you’re thinking of, it’s not your fault at all. I don’t know why you didn’t just disobey when I — that King — whoever — told you to do things against your better judgement, but—” Ash released Sceptile’s face and sat down on his gathered firewood all in one motion like a surrender. “It’s my fault, not yours.”

“Tile.” _I trust you._

“Are you sure you should?”

Butterfree stopped humming in the trees. A flight of pidgey paused overhead. The wind itself stilled.

For a moment, Sceptile stood frozen, just staring.

It was used to defeat — Ash wasn’t perfect, no trainer was, and they all learned together and bounced back stronger. That was just the pattern of things Sceptile had grown to love. It was even, as much as it hated the thought, used to being helpless. Its tree, its powers lost, battles against an overwhelming foe— different flavors of helplessness each time, but that striking weight of it the same.

And yet none of that had prepared Sceptile for Ash without his confidence.

Ash smiled, self-deprecatingly. The forest rustled back to life, and Sceptile stumbled to kneeling in front of Ash, to be closer.

“Brandon called me arrogant,” he said, hand snaking its way to hold Sceptile’s claw like it was instinct, “and he was right.”

Well, Sceptile was going to have some _words_ with Brandon, Frontier Brain or not. Prone to rushing in without thinking? Sure. Ambitious? Absolutely. A bit oblivious? Of course. But Ash knew as well as any trainer that getting anywhere took hard work and dedication, and from the stories Pikachu told, it had been a lesson hard learned. And Sceptile couldn’t think of a better trainer to have, or anyone, human or pokemon, more worthy of its trust. (Well, Pikachu, but only because it was basically an extension of Ash's will half the time.)

Or maybe, even, Brandon was right, but that didn’t excuse him stealing Ash’s confidence.

Sceptile let its firewood drop from under its arm and placed that hand on top of Ash’s, so that it was holding Ash’s hand in both of its own. “Sceptile scep,” it said, with force.

Ash pasted on another smile. “Sorry to worry you, Sceptile. I’m fine! I just need to work a little harder, is all.”

Sceptile’s tail twitched, and it looked Ash straight in the eye. “Sceptile.”

“If anything I should be comforting you! You’re the one who took the hits, and had to do all that stuff. I just humiliated myself! That’s not nearly as bad.”

Ash tried to take his hand out from Sceptile’s grip to gesture with, but Sceptile held on, and realized that it had to _keep_ holding on, no matter what. Part of it was that it knew Ash was lying — was a full-force Thunderbolt from Pikachu not supposed to hurt anymore? Sceptile was pretty sure last time it had gotten hit that hadn’t been true, and it was a _grass-type_ — but it was more than that.

It was more than Ash staying awake into the night, desperately trying to save its tree. It was more than Ash knowing what pokemon attacks felt like, because he always asked them to attack him in training and because he insisted on them hitting him in a pinch — Sceptile was pretty sure most trainers wouldn't dream of doing anything like that. It was more than Ash making Sceptile stronger than it could ever have imagined. It was more than learning the thrill of a near-miss or the rush of a counterattack or the high soaring sensation of victory. It was even more than Ash taking the attacks of an entire swarm of angry beedrill with Sceptile helpless behind him. It was the way Ash had looked at it that night, scared and guilty but _burning_ , and it was the way Ash looked at it now, self-hatred at war with a sort of faith and love Sceptile could hardly believe was directed its way.

“I don't deserve you,” said Ash, letting his arm fall limp. “Any of you. I mean, I'm trying, and I'm gonna win _someday_ ,” he tried to gesture again, but Sceptile kept holding on, “but you're all _so amazing_. You're all so incredible! You deserve someone who can win _now_.”

Sceptile couldn't figure out anything to say, except maybe _You're an idiot_ , but Ash would just take that as a confirmation. So it held Ash's hand even tighter and tried not to think about how terrifying this was, Ash left stranded without his confidence.

Sceptile wasn't scared of many things.

Sceptile was going to Leaf Blade Brandon directly in the face.

“Sceptile,” said Ash, like he could tell the direction its thoughts were going in. And then he grimaced, and his tone changed. “Sorry,” he said, looking right at Sceptile and then down at the ground. “I brought you out here to apologize, and all I did was add another thing to apologize about.”

“Tile?”

“I'm supposed to support you, not the other way ‘round. This is just my dumb problem, you shouldn't have to deal with it.”

Sceptile shook its head. “Scep.”

“Pikachu either!” said Ash, misunderstanding entirely for once. He managed to rip his hand out of Sceptile's grip and made a wide gesture with it, like he was throwing something away. “You all already do so much for me!”

“Sceptile,” it disagreed, and then fell on him.

Or, that’s how it would describe it if pressed, because falling was much less embarrassing than making a fumbling effort at a hug. Sceptile didn’t _do_ hugs. But it also didn’t do chores, and the falling had nearly knocked Ash off the pile of firewood they’d been sent to go get, so it rested its chin on Ash’s shoulder and tried to figure out what to do with its arms and ignored its knees digging painfully into the dirt. It was finding that there were a lot of things it would do, for Ash.

“Whoa!” shouted Ash, as he stabilized the both of them. Then he added, sounding confused and almost lost, “…Sceptile?”

“Tile,” said Sceptile, a little muffled because of how its chin was still on Ash’s shoulder. “Sceptile tile scep, sceptile.” Then it stopped before the speech got too complex, because Ash was _good_ at catching meaning but he got tripped up pretty easily, which usually ended with him losing the thread of a thought entirely. And Sceptile really, really wanted him to understand.

It was so glad they were alone in the forest, because this was _so_ much sappier than it was comfortable being.

“Sceptile…” said Ash again, but this time he sounded a whole different kind of lost. “If that’s really… If you trust me that much— I still don’t think I deserve it, or you, or, but…”

He was quiet for a long moment, until Sceptile said, “Scep?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he whispered. Another long pause, and then Ash let out a breath. “I’m done apologizing, you’re right.”

He took Sceptile’s chin in his hands again, and brought them face to face until Sceptile could see his eyes glittering with tears that quite hadn’t managed to fall. But then he smiled, and if it was still a little fake, a little desperate, there was peace in there too, like leaves stretching out under a summer sky. “Thanks a bunch, Sceptile.”

Sceptile wondered in that moment if Ash had ever thought about how he was named after a tree.

At the death of its birthplace, they planted a seedling together: the tree, and Sceptile, and its family, and Ash, and his family. And for awhile, the potential inherent there was all Sceptile had been able to think about, when it felt adrift, or unsafe, or uncertain. It had been an anchor, a phantom root system guiding him home. But then, some time Sceptile couldn’t place, it had stopped seeing that tree as _home_ and started thinking of Ash, instead.

It stood up, and picked up its firewood, and they went to face the world together.

**Author's Note:**

> (Sceptile Tried.)
> 
> seriously tho i love.............. ash and his pokemon. who all use it/its except when its REALLY a thing bc i am gotdamn _clinging_ to this opportunity to write characters who use the same pronouns as me
> 
> finally, in addition to being a tree, ash is also the name of a letter, which just makes me curious what the unown have to say about him


End file.
